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overall problem,” he said. 8
    The Jordanian delegation urged Riley to settle the issue at hand. They saw things one way. Israel saw them another. Why else was the United Nations here if not to break the deadlock?
    â€œThe Israelis believe they are innocent, we believe we are innocent,” Lt. Col. Sadek Bey Shar said. “We shall not know until somebody tells us who is right. We are here to discuss matters, explain difficulties and find solutions. We are not here to waste our time, talk and go away with no results. We agree that Jerusalem is a very sensitive point. People live too close to each other. However, both our people should have the right to live in peace.” 9
    The Israelis were especially antagonistic toward Riley and refused to accept his suggestions. Riley pushed the two delegations to come up with a new plan to protect civilians living in No Man’s Land. He thought it was time to stop killing people there. The problem was especially serious because neither side would agree on where, exactly, the No Man’s Land borders started.
    â€œThere is a tacit agreement between the parties whereby a civilian can be fired upon when he enters No Man’s Land, but even this action is not to be condoned and should be reduced to a minimum as firing of any kind is not justified under the terms of the General Armistice Agreement,” Riley said. “I believe both sides could agree that if somebody enters No Man’s Land, he should be picked up instead of being fired at.” 10
    The argument dragged on without driving toward any agreement. After three hours, the meeting broke up with no action taken to reduce tensions. It was a pattern that would repeat itself for weeks, months and years. Israel and Jordan would spend hours arguing over procedure and then run out of time to discuss the substantive incidents at hand. Figuring out who fired first always proved to be difficult. And there seemed to be no agreement on how to prevent more clashes.
    â€œThe question as to who opened fire first is almost impossible to ascertain,” Riley said before the April 23, 1953, meeting broke up. “I am not interested in the question of who is right or who is wrong. I am interested in the parties reaching conclusions whereby they can avoid similar incidents in the future.” 11
    His appeals swayed no one. Six months later, Maj. Gen. Vagn Bennike, a famed member of the Danish resistance to Nazi rule in World War II who was then serving as chief of staff for the UN Truce Supervision Organization that oversaw the commission’s work, warned the UN Security Council that the problems in the divided city were about to explode.
    â€œJerusalem, when tension increases between Israel and Jordan, is a dangerous powder keg,” he wrote in a report to the UN Security Council in New York. 12
    After years of circuitous arguments over the “width of the line,” Israel and Jordan finally made one breakthrough in 1955: They agreed that their borders would stretch to the outer edge of the lines drawn by Dayan and Tell. That helped resolve one problem with the map. But it failed to address the bigger one created by the existence of No Man’s Land in the first place.
    Killing Wild Dogs in Abu Tor
    In May 1956, Life magazine photojournalist David Rubinger got a call from an Israeli member of the MAC who had a tip: The United Nations was preparing for an unusual rescue mission in Jerusalem. They were coordinating a cease-fire so they could search for dentures lost in No Man’s Land.
    The dentures belonged to Miriam Zahade, a 42-year-old cancer patient at a French hospital that sat right on the edge of Jerusalem’s No Man’s Land. 13 Zahade was living out her last days on the border line, under the care of Catholic nuns. The West Jerusalem hospital sat on one of the narrowest strips of No Man’s Land between Israel and Jordan. The arched windows of the three-story stone building looked